The Come Up: Slice 9

I’m from Decatur, Georgia. Eastside, outskirts of Atlanta basically. With the music, it really just started at school. Around third or fourth grade, my friend was rapping and he was known around the school as one of the best rappers or whatever. At the time, I was more into drawing and art. But I took a liking to it. I’ve always been interested in music, but being around him made me really want to rap. When I got into it, I started getting really competitive. Me and the homes around school battle rapping. By the time I hit fifth grade, that’s when I really started recording songs and stuff. We used to skip gym to go record songs. The teacher had the microphone in the classroom and everything. And then from there on, when I got into middle school, we got into crafting songs and creating concepts and doing small videos for ‘em. Taking it real independent. We always took my music real serious and by the time I got to high school, that’s when I took it to the next level: Actually pressing up CD’s and taking them to school, one by one, to everybody. I started putting music out online real heavy. And when I got a hold of the DJs and really linked up with the Coalition DJs, that’s what really broke me. The first record I ever had hit the radio was “Gone”, when I was 17. It was produced by Warren G. That’s my cousin actually. I was in the 11th grade. I was still in high school. So it was overwhelming, but I started learning the business side of the game then as opposed to just the craft of it. I already had the craft down because I’d been rapping since I was 9, 10 years old anyway. So yeah, when it got to that point, I was just really playing catch-up. Just learning how the industry worked and how to network and all that stuff.